What can I do to help you? Can we start, Mrs. Winters, we want to go live. Ladies and gentlemen, are we ready
I'd like to call this meeting of the Board of Education to order. Public notice of this meeting pursuant to the Open Public Meetings Act has been given by the Board Secretary on February 4th, 2025 in the following manner. Posted notice on the school bulletin board in the administration building transmitted to the courier post. Philadelphia Inquirer and the Clerk of cherry hill township Please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God.
Indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Mr. Sugars, please call the roll. Dr. Braddock? Here. Mrs. Trafane? Here. Dr. Dreisen. Here, virtually. Mrs. Gallagher. Mr. Greenbaum? Here. Mr. Mayor? Here.
Ms. Palmer. Here. Ms. Stern? Here. Mrs. Winters. Here. So before we get started tonight, I would like to ask the student representatives from High School East requested that they speak, and I'm going to let them do that now in the beginning of the meeting due to the weather outside. So go ahead. Thank you. Okay, we'd like to start by saying we appreciate the administration's best efforts to get us out of danger during the threat.
At Cherry Hill East today, and we ensure that we work and ensure that we were kept as far away from possible from East, but we did actually find some issues with communication and the execution of the evacuation that we believe we would be amiss as Foremost, students from Cherry Hill East, we wouldn't be representing our student population correctly if we weren't to address these things. Yes. So we're going to take this as to represent our students who have talked to us and told us their concerns and based off what we experienced today as well.
So first and foremost, we are disappointed with the delayed activation of students and staff from the East Building. After the threat was identified by the administration. A shelter in place was called an hour before students and staff were ordered to evacuate. But it is our belief that due to the nature of the threat, the immediate response by administration should have been to evacuate the building immediately. Despite previous knowledge of the threat by the administration, the evacuation began during the alleged time of the proposed attack. Furthermore, we took issue with the lack of sufficient communication between administration, staff, and students.
News of the incident spread quickly among students, and many students knew about the specifics and details before teachers. In the age of social media, quicker action is needed to ensure Staff can respond accordingly to an emergency. While the administration notified parents of the incident in a time-sensitive manner, the emails that parents received seemed to contain more information than what the teachers were told with instances of me having to read the emails aloud to my teachers. Due to the rumors spreading between students and staff lacking adequate knowledge.
A lot of communication that was spread about the situation and how we were actively responding to it was misinformation. That, in turn, caused more anxiety to the students. And once we were transported to West, we found that there was a lack of appropriate measures taken to secure students. No roll call or attendance or bag check was taken of students to help them feel safer and aware that their peers were okay. We weren't able to go to other rooms and see where our peers were. Furthermore, many students had a hard time getting to bathrooms at West and were treated in kind of an incusatory manner, obviously due to the nature of what happened that day, but it wasn't fair treat students to not allow students to go to the bathroom or to make it difficult to get where they need to go. And it didn't help with easing the unsettled feeling many had.
Finally, between the three locations students were kept in the auditorium, the gyms, and the cafeteria, there was very limited internet connectivity in two of these locations, leaving students unable to notify their friends or their family that they were safe. When an unexpected emergency situation occurs in a school setting, there's no doubt that students need to be provided with proper Previously, after times of stress at school, students were advised where they could seek mental health professionals. However, we were not made aware of any of these resources today.
Students are expected to attend school tomorrow as if nothing happened today. However, we cannot pretend that many were not left without a lingering feeling of discomfort. We would also like to additionally use this time to thank individual teachers who went above and beyond to provide mental health counseling to students who had panic attacks and these teachers allowed them to contact parents when they weren't able to. While we understand that the East administration was doing their best to follow board policy in cases such as what happened today. Perhaps board policy should be updated to fit the times. Even if it is very unlikely for this specific instance to happen again, we must ask ourselves, do we have the proper measures to protect students if there was Any other possible threats such as a shooting.
It should not take another extreme scenario for us to consider action. Primitive action should be paramount. Sunset East, we have over 2,000 students. We cannot just hope for a solution or a path forward to fall in our laps. There needs to be strategic and specific planning so that moving forward, we are always proactive rather than reactive. Thank you for listening. And yeah, thank you. Thank you. I'm going to see if the High School West students have anything to say and then we'll have some board comment.
So I just wanted to say thank you for the reps at East for saying that. I think it's really important to address sort of the problems. There was definitely a communication sort of side issue at West as well. Just because it was a lot and we didn't really know what was going on. I mean, I don't know about your experience because it was different for everyone, but I think it was It was definitely frightening, but communication is definitely needed i thought it was It was definitely an opportunity for both of the schools to work together. And I think we did it eventually. But if it could be taken like quicker next time.
If there's a next time, that would be I just want to first say, I'm sorry that that happened to you guys. And I do agree, the communication needs to be better. And, you know, I first and foremost would like to say like Although we did get the students out safely, it was chaos from both ends. At West, it was chaos. And then trying to, you know, I saw it firsthand. I understand how you guys felt. That must have been a very stressful situation for you guys.
I just think we need to have more like clear protocols and what we do in that type of situation. Just like we have these lockdown drills for certain situations and things like that. I just think that a lot of things should have been handled differently. Especially like when you guys came into the building, you know, it was mixed up East and West students. We were, you know, switching classes and different things. So, you know, I'm really sorry that that happened that happened to you guys.
And, you know, I hope you guys see the change that you guys need from a situation like this. Thank you guys so much. And I mean that honestly i think you know, first and foremost, we're glad that everyone is safe but also to, we were discussing that to our knowledge we have never had to implement something like this before. So this is a learning Teaching and learning moment, I think, for all of us as well.
And to see it through the student lens is extremely valuable. Because none of the rest of us sitting at this table experienced what you experienced today. And there's no way that we would know about how you felt and what you saw rather than you telling us. So I really appreciate you as representatives of both high schools speaking out to us. We are going to take your concerns seriously. And if you hear additional concerns. From members of either high school community, please have them either go through you and you can tell us or they can contact the board directly.
So that we can take that feedback and hopefully this never happens again, but so that we can be better prepared in any kind of emergency to make sure that everybody's concerns are addressed. And I mean that sincerely. So thank you guys for speaking up. It's so valuable to have the student voice and student lens at the board table. And I'm just glad that you guys are safe. And like I said before we started the meeting. In the theme of keeping you safe, it is snowing. So if any of you guys want to head out early tonight. That's absolutely fine with me as well. Okay. Thank you so much.
Dr. Morton, did you have anything you wanted to add? Yes, absolutely. Thank you for your comments. Definitely appreciate it. As Ms. Winters just mentioned, sort of unprecedented for us. I think probably the movement of masses of students in the same manner in the evacuation Probably took place 25 years ago or so in the district. There are specific protocols, safety protocols, believe it or not. That the district employs under various situations and various circumstances.
The protocols that we implement are those that have been designed by security experts. When the threat was initially initiated. We tap and refer directly to that protocol. This protocol is one that is, again, designed by the new jersey state police and the New Jersey Department of Education. And that's what we followed. The additional evacuation of the building came into effect based upon the reality of the reality where we are in society and things that have that have occurred as we've liaised and discussed with Cherry Hill Police Department.
You know out of abundance of caution you know this an enhanced search of the building to ensure that the building was totally screened and totally screened scanned by canines who are trained to do that work was done. So we went above and beyond the protocol. We implemented the base protocol. And the building was deemed to be clear. And the threat was deemed to be non-credible at that time. But again, based upon things that have occurred in society and where we are, we felt the need And consultation again with law enforcement as well, local law enforcement we felt that the need was… for us to do an enhanced building sweep as well.
So the movement of the movement 2,100 kids is, again, unprecedented. It's something that we haven't had to do. It's done to ensure that everyone is safe. Everyone is physically safe. It's challenging to hear that you know their emotional safety was what was, you know, most impacted by kids today. But I can tell you that it was it was the intention. Of your administration. It was the intention of the administration across the district.
Teachers in other buildings, Mr. Redfern himself is there. He went over to be of assistance to high school west Everyone was there with the intention of attempting to provide support And to provide as much support as possible. It was an atypical day. To have additional students at High School West, you're looking at Now, 3,400 students in the building. It should feel chaotic. It should feel a bit different just because of the masses of children that were in the building.
Couple that with Parents come into the building to ensure that their children are safe and to pick their children up. Again, you know, pulls staff away and created an atypical situation, which I'm sure was absolutely unnerving for everybody. I stayed over at High School East. As per the protocol calls for me to do. Set up a command with the with the law enforcement team that was there. And that's More importantly, as students begin to arrive back and staff and everyone arrived back, I just tried to see how how much I could assess the overall feelings and well-being of everyone And again, clearly anxiety was had risen.
I was happy and reassured to see that everyone was physically safe. That's what's most important. And the building was cleared as well. And to see the collaboration as well amongst so many people. You know, dr. Burns and his team, Mr. Finkel and his You know, I think they definitely did their best, but there's lessons learned and there's opportunities always for us to improve. Once again, thank you for sharing your thoughts. Feelings and emotions, I'm sure. I was just texting Mr. Fanco as well.
He will be reaching out to be reaching out Errolyn and sell them to you guys tomorrow. And he'll be reaching out to work with you guys and as will Dr. Burns What do you guys? Go ahead. I was just wondering if so going forward and God forbid a situation never happens like this again But is that going to be the protocol to move like them just let's say for instance east or west to the other schools and Like, what will that look like? Will there be a designated space now for these students to Like if there was ever a situation Yeah, so part of the safety protocol calls for a reunification site, as it's called. It's a location that's large enough to house
An individual student body. It's part of our safety plan. So I don't want to say where the kids would go. If something were to take place. But if High School West needed to evacuate the building. There is a reunification site that we have arranged for High School West students to go to. It's a unique situation with High School East because they're one of the largest schools in terms of enrollment in this area So individual places that can accommodate student body of that size for challenging. They're limited, right? So there's very few places that, you know, that we can
Have parents and accommodate the kids and have parents come as well to meet, you know, meet children to provide lunch like as was done today and everything that has to be done. Um so uh Again, knock on wood, we do not have to be in the position where we have to evacuate buildings. But if we do, there are reunification sites that are arranged. For every school.
I'm going to go back to our east reps because they have something to say, I think. Based on like just because I don't have a like very robust knowledge of the safety uh like protocols. I was curious as to like why there isn't a protocol regarding like bag checks or the students or anything like that because I personally felt this and I know teachers felt this and all the students around me. We were actually like when we were on the field for like about like 30 to 45 minutes as everyone slowly came out of the east We were way closer together than we would have been in the building. And a lot of us, most of us had our bags. I only know about like
One class that wasn't told to bring out their bags. We felt as if it was less safe because any possible like threat items would have been transported with us and we thought that that was like not the best. And we also were just Confused about the like route of moving to west because When we did move to our second location site We were in many different rooms and we were walking on like fields and there's no teachers guiding us. I was walking in a group of 10 kids and we were just
Trying multiple entrances, seeing which ones we're allowed to get into. And although there is a protocol, it didn't feel like anyone knew it. And it really did feel like chaos and like a lot of people did have like panic attacks and anxiety disorders were like heightened at the time. I agree as well. Like what's the policy on back checks? Because that was talk at our school like if there was If it was on a student and we were bringing it into a building with already a thousand students like what does that look like
So that was a concern when we heard because we didn't know that if there was any bag checks and You know, they were moving so quick to get them over here. As they should be to try to get them here. But that was also a concern on our end. And we can also account for like there were students showing up at doors and things like that. And we could not let them into the building. So I appreciate this conversation, but I also want to remind everybody in here that that discussing student safety and security, there are things that we can discuss in public session and there are things that we probably should not in order to keep you guys safe.
So I just, I don't mean… devalue what you're saying in any way, shape or form. And I know it's fresh and it's new because it just happened today. But I also don't want to go down the path of opening up this conversation to go to someplace that we can't go because remember, we are in public session. We are broadcasting live on the internet now. So I think I'm going to recommend at this point that we penned these questions. You should go to your principals with these questions and they will be brought forward. And again, not to devalue what you're talking about, but just with an understanding of the fact that we take this extremely seriously.
Extremely seriously and we want to hear from you, but I want to make sure it goes through the right channels. And at the right time. Thank you guys so much for speaking tonight. I really do appreciate it. And please know that we value you and we're going to take your feedback and use it to create a process that is the best that it can be moving forward, okay? Thank you so much. I am going to move forward with the meeting. We do not have any board recognition tonight. We have two presentations. The first one I have been told is a video.
That is one minute. It's going to be one minute of awesome. So this is the East Spring Musical Preview, which I believe is Mary Poppins. Mary Poppins absolutely and Mr. Blavinski, if you can cue that up.
Just to let you know, Mary Poppins such a phenomenal show. Showtimes are scheduled for February 28th. March 1st, 2nd. Seventh, eighth, and 9th as well. Tickets are now available also. Looking forward to a great show. I expect you'll have an abundance of board members there. Thank you so much. We do have one additional presentation tonight, and this is an HIV presentation presented by Ms. Carter and Dr. Mahan, I believe.
Good evening, everyone. Thank you. We will try to go through this quickly as well. We do recognize that the topic is very important though. This is my first year working with harassment, intimidation, and bullying in my first year working with Ms. Carter. We are seeing the HIV process through a little bit of a different lens, and we anticipate that this survey and many of the changes will not only help to improve the process, but also reduce the number of HIVs due to improved communication. Process and education for our families and students. There was a survey administered because we heard that the HIV process was difficult And we heard this from a number of different perspectives.
These perspectives supported the development of the district HIV goal, which everyone is familiar with. We want family, students, and staff to know we take the survey results seriously and appreciate the feedback to make the process, one's individual experience and our district better. If one's perception is that we missed the mark, we need to make adjustments. As we continue to improve the HIV process for all members of our community.
We recognize that we need to highlight the overall communication process, which seems to be a theme this evening. This scatter plot or word bubble as some may call it, highlight words that survey respondents use to inform us on how we can improve. Keep these words in mind as we progress through the presentation. We will revisit it later in the slideshow. Just to highlight words that stand out. Are words that were repeated multiple time by respondents. So draw your attention to communication, parents, HIV.
And process. As I mentioned earlier, there was an HIV evaluation survey distributed in October of 2024 to all families. This was distributed to all families who had a child who was involved in an HIV incident, either as an alleged offender or an alleged victim. Our slideshow will highlight responses from respondents, including areas of strength and growth.
Changes for the 24-25 school year. Changes that are pending. And changes that are forthcoming. And lastly, this presentation will lay the foundation for a follow-up presentation in June. We wanted you to know some basic things about the survey. There were 205 respondents. However, 130 individuals completed the entire survey. So as we move through the slides, keep that in mind as some of the numbers may differ.
Here are the grade levels that the respondents were associated with. And the majority of the respondents represented grades six through 12. This slide represents the schools in which the respondents are associated with. Similar to the previous slide with grades six through 12. A large portion of the respondents identified east and west as their school. And lastly, we have participation breakdowns based on gender and ethnic backgrounds.
I'm going to turn it over to Ms. Carter now. Good evening, everyone. Now we will hone in on responses specific to harassment, intimidation, and bullying, which we also call HIV. This slide provides us with the respondent's history of interaction with the HIV process. As you can see, 65% of the respondents were involved with the HIV process more than once. This slide provides us with the respondent's involvement with the HIV appeal process.
15% of the respondents submitted an HIV appeal and participated in an HIV hearing. The next five slides will provide insight into the areas of communication and clarity as it relates to HIV. This slide provides feedback from the respondent and allows us to assess whether the explanation of the HIV investigation process was delivered in a manner that ensured the audience grasped the steps and procedures involved in handling HIV incidents. 30% of our respondents agree and or strongly disagree. Sorry. 18% were neutral and 52% disagree or strongly disagree.
This slide provides feedback from the respondent on how user-friendly and clear the HIV appeal process was and whether individuals found it easy to follow the steps required to appeal a decision related to an HIV case. 16% of respondents agree or strongly agree. 35% of respondents were neutral and 49% of respondents disagree or strongly disagree. Next, we questioned respondents about how well they were kept informed during the process, particularly regarding updates. 20% of our respondents agree or strongly agree.
22% of our respondents are neutral. And 57% of respondents disagree or strongly disagree. In the same vein as the previous slide regarding communication in a timely manner, we ask for feedback on whether the HIV letters the respondent received were informative. 17% of respondents agree or strongly agree. 25% of respondents were neutral and 59% of respondents disagree or strongly disagree. This slide provides feedback on whether the respondent understood the steps taken and has a clear understanding of how the situation was addressed. This could include conducting an investigation Interviewing involved parties, and implementing applicable interventions. 25% of respondents agree or strongly agree.
22% of respondents are neutral. And 54% of respondents disagree or strongly disagree. The next three slides will provide insight into the areas of support and responsiveness as it relates to HIV. The HIV process can be stressful, so we felt it was important to obtain feedback from the respondent about the level of emotional support offered to their child during the investigation. 21% of respondents agree or strongly agree. 29% of respondents are neutral.
And 51% of respondents disagree or strongly disagree. This slide provides feedback from the respondent about the level of attention given to the concerns raised. 29% of respondents agree or strongly agree. 29% of respondents are neutral and 44% of respondents disagree or strongly disagree. To further assess the level of support offered, we asked respondents about the level of access they had to school personnel when they required assistance. 32% of respondents agree or strongly disagree or agree.
28% of respondents were neutral and 40% of respondents disagree or strongly disagree. The next three slides will provide insight into the areas of fairness and resolution As it relates to HIV. This slide assesses whether the respondent felt the HIV investigation was carried out objectively. 21% of respondents agree or strongly agree. 32% of respondents were neutral. And 48% of respondents disagree or strongly disagree. As previously mentioned, we recognize that the HIV process can be stressful And in some instances, confusing.
This slide assesses whether the respondent felt satisfied with the outcome of the HIV incident and whether the final resolution met their expectations. 28% of respondents agree or strongly agree. 27% of respondents are neutral. And 45% of respondents either disagree or strongly disagree. While it is important to address reported HIV incidents, it is very important to decrease the likelihood of future occurrences occurrences of HIV. As a result, we assess whether the respondent felt the action taken to resolve the situation was done in a way that would prevent reoccurrence. 15% of respondents agree or strongly agree.
37% of respondents were neutral. And 49% of respondents either disagree or strongly disagree. The next five slides will provide insight into the overall process as it relates to HIV. There are guidelines established by the New Jersey Department of Education for the HIV process that must be followed by the district and anti-bully specialists. As parents want to advocate for their children. It is important that they understand the overall process and the HIV law as intended.
As a result, we assess whether the respondent felt the HIV process with both efficient and clear. 14% agreed and or strongly agreed. 20% of our respondents were neutral. And 67% of our respondents disagreed or strongly disagree. Safety and security is the number one priority of our school district. The implementation of the HIV guidelines with fidelity and a clearly articulated process helps us to reassure families that children are safe in our care. This slide provides feedback on whether the respondent felt
Most assured that the school took effective steps to prevent and address bullying and ensure their child's well-being and overall safety in the school. 8% of respondents agreed and or strongly agreed. 21% of our respondents were neutral. And 71% of our respondents disagreed or strongly disagreed. An HIV incident and investigation is only a snapshot into the full situation the family is navigating. As a result, it is important that we also provide follow-up to families.
With this in mind, this slide assesses the level of follow-up steps taken to resolve the HIV incident. 11% of our respondents either agree or strongly agree. 23% of our respondents were neutral. And 65% of our respondents either disagreed or strongly disagree. Considering the previous slide and the need for follow-up, it is also important that we provide resources to further assist families experiencing difficult situations. This slide assesses whether the respondent was offered helpful support information or tools to assist them after the resolution of the HIV incident.
13% of respondents agree or strongly agree, 26% of our respondents were neutral And 62% of our respondents either disagree or strongly disagree. Now FAIR will provide information about the last slide related to the overall HIV process. Thank you, Ms. Carter. So the survey offered us A time for reflection and opportunity for improvement. This process requires us to take a critical eye to many of the things we have in place. So while the survey highlighted several areas of growth, including communication, process, and a notion of empathy versus compliance.
I would like to highlight a few strengths that were evident in the survey. The response rate was 63%, which is great on a survey of this nature. Would we like for the response rate to be higher? Yes. But 63% of the families who received the survey participated. We have also noticed a decrease in the number of founded HIVs from September to January 2024. To September to January 2025. The feedback on the parent university information sessions for HIV have been overwhelmingly positive.
And we have been able to follow established timelines and comprehensive review process of each case. And lastly, we are committed to educating our entire community on the HIV process. So I take you back to this slide, which we began the presentation with. As a reminder of the areas that were highlighted by survey respondents that needed to be improved. The data from the survey demonstrates that there are significant changes in work that needs to be done in implementation education and communication regarding HIV.
Based on the feedback from the survey and anecdotal notes we have received, several changes have been made over the past eight months. Prior to jumping into those changes, I do want to highlight some of our current practices that speak more to compliance. As the administrative liaison to the Board of Education Policy and Committee. Excuse me, as the administrative liaison to the board of education policy and legislation committee As a collective group, we have taken a look at the HIV policy.
Information on the website and dissected the language of HIV to ensure consistency across all platforms. I highlight this because there are parallel conversations occurring at the BOE level, the district level, and school level, which will help to inform the HIV process. So here are some current practices in place. To ensure compliance. Although we recognize based on feedback that we need more than compliance. So we follow the anti-bullying bill of rights HIV information is on all district and school websites.
There are monthly meetings with the anti-bullying specialists The parent letter that is sent out does include direct contact information to the anti-bullying coordinator. There are annual trainings for administrators and staff. And anti-bullying specialist. And for consistency, there's utilization of the hipster system. I will now turn it back over to Ms. Carter to go over current changes that have been made.
After reviewing the data we collected in a survey, we began brainstorming on how we can start improving the overall HIV process And more specifically, our communication. As a result, the current changes listed here were implemented with these improvements in mind. The first three bullets were addressed by dissemination of the survey and review of the collected data. Parents had an opportunity to provide feedback via a survey that included a Liker scale. And an open-ended response. Next, the multi-layer review of HIV cases ensures an increased alignment of the HIV process across schools.
We also provided access to NJ4S and they provided increased emotional support to students experiencing difficulties in school Which also includes HIV. Training sessions have been conducted and are underway for various stakeholders to increase their tools So that they are better equipped as an advocate and support. The following items provide tangible and easily accessible information for all stakeholders. We have our infographic that provides a condensed timeline of the HIV process. We have our parent university sessions.
Which are trainings that are provided in four segments. And our hearing process document that provides detailed information related to the appeal process where parents can submit a request for an appeal. The following items are pending for the current school year. Hiv letters will be revised, keeping in mind the feedback from our survey respondents and recent policy changes. There was a website crosswalk or alignment of forms, policy, language, and tools To ensure that as parents are looking for proper resources, everything is easily accessible.
We will disseminate a customer service type survey to each family involved with an HIV investigation so that we have timely feedback and updates to the HIV process. This will also allow for checks and balance to ensure materials and resources are shared with families. Next, we will be developing and will deliver additional targeted training for students. We will have assemblies that are scheduled and cameos. They are personalized videos specifically created for our students.
Forthcoming in the 2025-2026 school year, we have the following items that we're looking forward to. We will continue to provide training. We will provide early and consistent communication for families. As a scripted message that will be provided during back to school night. And that will be pre-K through 12th grade. There will be refresher training for administrators and ABSs to communicate changes and process expectations. There will also be a new form that will be added to the Genesis portal for all parents to acknowledge pertinent information related to HIV.
And last but not least, we will continue to implement the revised HIV protocols across all schools. And now Farrah will close us out with our last slides. We will be back in June to share an analysis of HIV incidents, including frequency, nature. Resolution times and outcomes to identify trends and gaps. And we will share identified common trends across HIV data and next steps.
I'm going to stop sharing my screen for one second because I would like to just show quickly the District website. For a few changes that have already been made. Give me a second. Sorry.
It's not up if I do this one. Yes, the app. Okay. Okay, so if you go to the district website, there are two ways that you can access HIV information. The first, which is a requirement. Is that HIV information is prominent on the homepage. You will see here that we have Ms. Carter's information as well as the HIV grade and anti-bullying information. Another way that you can access the information is if you go to our district.
And to the harassment, intimidation, and Bullying tab. When you click here, based on feedback that we recently heard, we have redesigned this page. So previously there were videos that popped up immediately And this was actually called additional resources and it was at the bottom of the page. We have changed that to resources only. And we have the anti-bullying information, which takes you, excuse me. To our landing page that has all of our forms, the anti-bullying Bull of Rights.
And all of the contact information for each of the schools. If you click on the second link, which is the HIV process, hearing process, if you are requesting an HIV hearing, we have put together a one pager so parents know the exact process and all the steps that they need to take. And then lastly, when you click here under HIV Parent University, it takes you to the videos that Ms. Carter spoke about earlier, there are four segments to the HIV parent university, which are all here and looted as informational purposes.
And then lastly, then HIV infographic. Which includes, there we go. A little bit delayed. The steps to the HIV process from the act of HIV being reported to when the anti-bullying coordinator is contacted to review by the Board of Education. And next steps. As we continue to improve and take feedback, you will see additional information added to the website.
We are mindful. Stop sharing. We are mindful that there is certainly room for improvement and we look forward to continuing to rise to the expectation that our community is accustomed. Thank you. Thank you so much, Ms. Carter and Dr. Mahan for the presentation. I just want to say at the outset that I want to thank Mr. Mayor and the P&L committee for their leadership on the goal surrounding HIV, which was in our goals last year, and also for discussing HIV's
Consistently at P&L with an eye to constant improvement i think sometimes when we get information, it can be challenging, but there's no way that we know if we're improving unless we have a baseline. So I think that this clearly shows where our strengths are and where our challenges are in places for improvement. And I'm looking forward to revisiting this as we move forward to see how the changes that we are moving towards are affecting the experience that our families have in the district. Board members, I'd like to open it up to questions. Dr. Braddock.
First of all, thank you so much for the presentation. It's fantastic. As a data nerd, I love looking at these things. Two things. Number one, speaking of being a data nerd, do we as board members have access to the raw data at all? Or can we get access to the raw data at all? We typically do not share the raw data if we're going to share that out, we would vet that data through Dr. Morton first and then he would share it with you. Sure. Yeah. So I'll just make… Well, one question, then one recommendation based on the answer to that question. Will you be asking kind of the same questions again
In the future, so you get your pre-test, post-test, see what they answered before and after. So that's a great question from one data nerd as you called yourself to another. So actually, we will not because we do not know who responded to the survey. So we would not, we would be comparing apples to oranges as opposed to apples to apples, because we do not know the people who exactly responded. In development of the customer service survey that will go out to families after an HIV incident occurs.
Those questions have been designed to speak directly to the changes that have been made. So for example. It will not say… one of the questions was like. Tell us how the communication was. The question will be. Did the anti-bullying specialist at your school direct you to the website so that you could see the infographic? So we are asking very specific questions because that will be a way for us to gauge if the measures we have put in place are being pointed to and then creating the impact that we expect. Right. One question slash recommendation, if I may, that wasn't present in this data. If you're able to get whether the individual or the individual's family responding is an offender or a victim associated with the HIV incident.
I think you'd likely find that there's probably some sort of effect that whether somebody is an offender or a victim and how they're responding to your surveys, I can imagine If an offense was founded and they were punished, I imagine that Maybe the family would respond that they didn't have a great experience even if Logistically, everything was on the up and up. So if you're able to collect that data, I think you would get a lot of insight. Into the responses. But this initial date is fantastic. I love a good baseline.
Thank you. Board members. Mr. Greenbaum? Thank you. Thank you very much for this presentation. I thought the results were very interesting and insightful. I don't have any questions. I just had some comments I wanted to share. Over the past year, the administration and board have worked together to make improvements to the process, but it's clear there's still much progress to be made. Educating students and families about the process seems to continues to be important. And one of the biggest gaps that we see
Is when families have a lack of understanding of the difference between the HIV statute. The handling of disciplinary actions through code of conduct. Ultimately, parents just want to know that actions have consequences and that incidents are addressed. This might mean providing better information on HIV criteria as a family is going through it. Unfounded doesn't mean something didn't happen or there were no consequences. It simply means it didn't meet one or more of the criteria in the statute.
And as Mr. Green often explains, it's a very technical statute. If somebody's child is bullied and it comes back as unfounded, the immediate reaction people have a lot of the time is But it did happen. And that's not what happened the HIV statute is about. Again, families just want assurance that incidents are addressed. We also need to recognize the limitations of the HIV statute, which can be very frustrating. It makes the path to process improvement very challenging. For example, the district can share with the family that there were actions taken through code of conduct, but can't be specific.
And often this is where I think a lot of us see families get frustrated. They want to know what was done about it. And privacy laws don't allow for that. Efforts to improve transparency can be challenging as well. I'll give another example. You know, we've read incident summaries and heard appeals where the alleged offender seems to be unaware of what they're even being accused of. And there seems to be some disconnect there. I'd love to find some ways to introduce more transparency To individuals while they're going through the process. Help build more confidence in the process.
Again, thank you very much for sharing this valuable information and I look forward to continued collaboration. Thank you. Ms. Gallagher. Hi, thank you. I'm just going to make this quick as well. And I agree with Dr. Braddock about If there's the ability to drill down in the survey to see if offenders or targets depending if they might see a different
Have a different experience. I think that would be interesting data to have. And then just another, I don't really have any questions, but yeah, and I think just the survey highlights that, you know, there's improvements and I think it's a good baseline and and hopefully Just… all we can do is get better. I think communication, transparency, having a better you know process and how it's being communicated and just continue to survey to find out you know areas of improvement is always a positive experience. So thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Gallagher. Mr. Fain. Thank you. I'm just looking at your infographic now and I'm admiring all of the detail and the effort put into making this as easy to follow as possible. I went on because at first glance, I didn't realize that you had the timeline in like chronological order on like what to expect on how long things would take. And I see it in there and I think that's super helpful. Thank you. That was already a question that I was going to have that's answered. My one question I do have, or it's more, I guess, a comment.
Is there any direction from or from us to the families about what to do if this timeline is not being adhered to. Or what the chain of command is in that situation. So typically, if there is a question regarding the timeline, the anti-bullying specialist at the building will try to answer that. If the parent still has questions, they are directed to the anti-bullying coordinator, who is Ms. Carter, and then she answers all those questions. There are instances where a investigation is delayed, for example, if there are if there happens to be police involvement in the investigation, the investigation is put on hold and then the investigation will continue after.
That is typically communicated by Ms. Carter that our investigation is on hold. And parents are told that we have received less of those phone calls this year because we have a pretty standard process that we are following to ensure that the HIVs are getting to the board agenda and trying to meet that timeline. So parents are aware of that. We did have some that were delayed.
Two weeks ago, just because of having a quorum and how things needed to go onto the agenda. Those parents, I believe, were notified. So that they knew that it would be a delay. So we're trying to address issues as they are being presented. I'm sorry, I think I wasn't double, I wasn't double guessing that you're doing it. I was more thinking maybe it would be helpful to just put on the website if you have any questions about The timeline, refer to your building ABS or whatever, because just from me looking at it at first glance.
I feel like maybe as a parent they would be maybe immediately running to the Board of Ed or something like that. Thinking because the word is there. Just for open communication and since we're in having the conversation And then… Oh, I had another question, but I forget it. While you're thinking about it, you just reminded me, we just loaded to the website like chain of communication by levels so we could put a chain of communication for HIV that can be added to the website.
And as I am responding, we're also looking at the customer service survey and the are you and were you an alleged offender or an alleged victim in this situation is on the survey. Oh, great. So we'll get that in the second go around. Perfect. And I did remember, is there any opportunity for the building ABSs to collaborate with each other for methods that are working from their perspective that are working well and maybe parents that are giving them feedback or just praising, thank you for communication, like communicating.
Yes. So we meet with the ABSs monthly And they all come together. We go through cases, the way reports are written, incidents, potential police involvement, all sorts of different topics come up. We meet for, is it 90 minutes? An hour. Yeah, they meet for an hour. So many of the ABS at the elementary school are also the school counselors. So Ms. Carter and I, more Ms. Carter than myself, but she meets with them in chunks so the SACS have an hour independently, then all of the ABSs meet together. And then the school counselors meet and then school counselors at the secondary level meet separately. So there are a number of meetings for them to interface to share
Ideas. Thank you. Because I feel that's reassuring because I know that the data shows that there's a pretty big discrepancy across the board and through some of the schools. So it's helpful to hear from the people that are doing it, what's working well. Thank you. Absolutely. Thank you. Dr. Dreisen. Thank you, Mrs. Winters. And first, just to start with a note of gratitude, which I think others have already expressed but Really appreciate the effort and time taken in collecting the survey and then the transparency here in sharing this feedback and recognizing, I know it's already been said that there are
Real opportunities for improvement here based on the survey results. My question and comment refer to the next steps. And just for some context before going in, it's all grounded really as um You know, Ms. Palmer would know we recently had our NJSBA training and it's from this perspective of the board is focused on the what the administration is focused on the how. So I defer to Dr. Morton and the team on the how in terms of how we improve these results. My question around next steps is really focused on the what. And so seeking more clarification in terms of what does good look like here? So do we have goals or aspirations as to where we want to see
These survey responses. None of the responses had a majority of respondents agreeing with the statement. And we're not going to get there overnight, certainly. But to help the board in providing guidance on the what Can we get more specifics? In terms of next steps when the customer service, if the how is the customer service survey, which is a great suggestion When can we expect that to be put in place and what does good look like? What are we hoping for to come from that?
So that's a great question. And I would say we certainly want to see more in the green. And more evidence of evidence individuals having a more positive experience with the hiv incident, you know, whether you are an alleged victim or an alleged offender, you should walk away feeling as though your voice was heard. And that there was some sort of resolution. And based on this survey that was not indicated to us in any way. So we will be… implementing the customer service survey In a few weeks to families who have been involved in an incident, part of the goal development process that the board engages in along with members of the superintendency is to determine
What indicators of success look like. And how we can make strides towards those indicators. Over the next few months and in the summer months, Dr. Dreisen we will or you will be communicating with Dr. Morton through members of the board. On what those goals will look like and what those indicators of success will look like as the administrative side share back if those are realistic goals and indicators of success that are certainly measurable.
And then we will come to some sort of consensus which will lend itself to the development of the overall board goal related to HIV. If I can just add as well, if you think about an improvement process, this part of the process was generated because of anecdotal feedback. That suggested that we needed to improve. So we wanted to gain understanding. So at this part of the process is where we assess And gain familiarity with what individuals perspective is and what their experience has been.
So this is like information gathering and primarily that's, you know, that's where we are the next next phase of the process will be goal setting, as Dr. Mahan established. And we'll have specific measures in there as well. Ms. Stern. I echo everyone's gratitude. For this um As I find myself saying more and more often, I guess you know i someone who's been on the board a little longer than most other board members. This is a radical departure from how things were a few years ago even
Being willing to do this survey. The level of, I'm just going to call it like vulnerability to put this out there and and have a presentation, have it in board goals. The fact that we're willing to go so far to you know, I think demonstrates the commitment that you as an administration and us as a board feel to improving this. Experience because it's a really challenging experience to go through as a student as parent as families for families. I've been through this process more than once. As a parent, it's it's really stressful.
To say the least. And the only thing I can compare it to, and I don't, you know, it is There's really no very few other experiences as a parent when you're interacting with a school district that feels something along the lines of like a legal issue, right? Like, you know, dealing with being in court or whatever. I mean, those kinds of experiences, most people, if you've never Had to go to court for anything. It's pretty jarring and that's not what this is to be clear, but it is an experiential piece for families you know that's not what people think of when they send their kids to school and when their kids go to school. So it's really challenging. And I'm not surprised to see the results, although it is
Jarring for me to sit and see to see the results because they're I'm not used to being used to having the majority of responses be negative to so to speak is just the way I would frame it. In a big picture way. So obviously we have room to improve and there's already been, like I said, in the beginning you know a tremendous amount of well I appreciate the willingness to look at what we need to do differently. And I would also add to that. I see a significant improvement already. I had a parent unsolicited who's been involved with the HIV process, you know, and is is is vocal about it. Tell me how much better things have gotten, how the letter is better In itself. So, I mean, I think we're definitely on the right track
But, you know, we're definitely not satisfied with where we are. And I think we keep moving forward. Mr. Green reminds the board often that and says to families, you know, this is not meant to be a punitive process. This is meant to be a remediative process. Statute, I guess is how if you say, if I said it right. You know, so, you know, but that's not often how it's experienced. So I think like, to me, that's the big goal is can we get it to feel like more of a remediative process than a punitive process.
And I think, you know, we're moving in that direction. I'd love to a couple of thoughts I had, which I shared after the memo that I'd love to see potentially the pta support our efforts. They are a great bridge to the parents And they could be a great resource for us in terms of communication, in terms of helping provide education and potentially directing families.
If they want to be. I'd love to see the possibility of that. I think we can, I think having videos and infographics and visuals You know, Mrs. Barati, you know, we have you here now. And I imagine this may be some an area of expertise of yours, obviously. So, you know, I don't know if that speaks to your involvement or not, but that's a huge improvement we've already made in that direction. And I'd love to see A lot of people communicate better or receive information better these days through videos and infographics so
I think moving in that direction helps. And also, I'm just the one question I have is. Have we looked at other districts as we often do for so many other things, right? And, you know, in terms of their practices You know, Ms. Carter, I know you came from another district and this was your expertise there. So just curious if that's been a resource that we've accessed and or are considering accessing. So yes, that is a resource that we access. As a district, we actually host the Camden County Curriculum Consortium for all the districts in Camden County.
While the majority of that is to discuss curriculum. Many of those individuals are also responsible for harassment, intimidation and bullying in their districts. And a variety of topics come up in those meetings to support everything from curriculum and instruction. To HIV, to preschool, to any topic that you can potentially think of so we are not only often seen as a leader in many areas, we also humble ourselves and make sure that we reach out to our colleagues in surrounding districts to
Implement or model or get suggestions on some of the practices that we could do to improve what we do here in Cherry Hill. That's helpful. Thank you. And I guess last thoughts are Something that I guess really resonated with me more so this year than in previous years is the tremendous amount of resources and quite honestly funding we end up putting towards HIVs. Dealing with this because it is a statute that we're required to deal with and there's a lot of steps and it takes a lot of people and a lot of time.
And so, you know, it's necessary, but it's not necessarily a fun, as we would call it, a funded mandate. I do. Appreciate very much our previous presentation. I believe it was our last meeting about restorative practices. Because the truth is the sort of practices in themselves Prevent. Situations escalating towards HIV. But the other resource that we have to help us in that is not only what happens inside our schools, but outside our schools.
When you have the unfortunate responsibility to read these as we do as a board You know, we realize how much you know. How much we would hope that there's um different kind of education on modeling going on in our students lives outside of school. To help prevent these types of interactions or I guess mitigate them to some degree.
So, you know, that's always my plea to is, you know. Doing what you can as you know is the best all of us can to try to create a world with the way we interact with people by our actions and behaviors and hopefully modeling that for our students. So that is something everybody can do. So I'll leave it at that. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Mayor. Yeah, so I'll be very brief. First of all, thank you for the presentation.
I'm not going to echo, but certainly want to thank specifically Mr. Greenbaum and Mrs. Stern for many of their comments. I was not surprised at all at the result of the survey. I believe for the most part. Confirm what we know and what we have. What we have learned anecdotally, and we'll just simply say that, A, I'm thankful that We are confident enough in what we are doing and the people we have in place To publicly discuss it.
That we are already in the process of making many of the improvements that have been suggested and will likely be successful. To a degree in addressing Some of the challenges, and I look forward to continuing to do that working more closely with Dr. Mahan and the team through P&L and with the wider board in order to continue to move forward, recognizing that There are tremendous roadblocks that are structural with regard to privacy laws and others.
So we will improve. We can continue to move forward. Recognizing that we are as frustrated oftentimes as many who are involved in this process from the other side. But again, thank you. Thank you for the comments from other board members. A lot of work and I'm happy to continue to help move it forward. And thank you, Mr. Mayor. Just for the new members for their understanding, last year we developed goals through committees. I don't know if that will be the same process this year, but that was how it was run last year and the year previous and the HIV
Goals with their indicators of success came through the P&L committee So if that process is the same one this year, then you can direct all your goal related thoughts to our P&L chair, Mr. Mayor. Who will work on the next iteration of what those goals and indicators look like based on the data that we are receiving. So that's sort of to answer Dr. Dreisen's comments about how do we operationalize this forward set metrics for what we'd like to see ideally. And so we can measure whether we're meeting those.
The board goals development process would be the way that you do that and it would be through P&L. Any other board members? All right. Thank you so much to Ms. Carter and Dr. Mahan for the presentation. We appreciate it. We are going to move on to administrative reports. This is something that we've instituted this year with Ms. Sugars giving a update on our bond referendum projects.
Thank you, Mrs. Winters. We had our monthly meeting last Monday. We had Mr. Greenbaum and Ms. Palmer join us for that with Dr. Morton and myself and our district professionals. So I wanted to just provide an update on where we are with the construction. These pictures are fresh, hot off the presses. I fortunately took them yesterday. So let's start with our APRs and we'll go in order of completeness. We're going to start with Sharp, our least complete APR. Active construct, very active construction site yesterday. They're still putting up the brick at that location.
You can see the muddy conditions there. I fortunately was warned about that and threw on a pair of old sneakers that were thrown out yesterday when I got back. But yeah, so lots of work going on there. The roof is up there. The brick continues there. As we move that project forward. Next, we have our Barton project The nice green, I think it's our only green one And you will see as we move into the interior of these these additions, you'll see a lot of similarities because they're very similar in how they're designed.
So Barton is moving right along. We're sealing the outsides, working on the inside. We've had a lot of deliveries of gym equipment, of scoreboards, flooring, sound panels, those kinds of things. As we move through these projects, we're getting those things done. So that's Barton. This one is man. You can see here that man is moving right along. We also have a picture here of the connecting link between where the APR is, man is actually in the back of the building where the APR is going to be connecting to the existing building.
So we're moving right along with that project. This is Johnson Elementary, our yellow brick building, moving right along there too. You can see that this connecting link is a little bit different than the other connecting links. And that we are moving right along with those projects there. Next, we have night. You can see here we're starting to do some work on the stage area here.
This is the connecting link up here that you can see. This over here is the flooring. The flooring has to acclimate to the temperature of the building. All of the flooring has been delivered, but it will sit for a couple weeks until it's ready to be installed. And this down here is a shot from the APR onto the playground area, which you can also see is very muddy. I'm sure everyone's getting excited, hopefully with some better weather, we can open up that playground.
This is Kingston. Kingston is the furthest along. It was the first one that we started. So I threw in a couple extra pictures on this one. You can see here that we have painted the proscenium. If you look up here, this piece up here is the dividing curtain. That has been installed that will allow for more than one gym class to go on at the same time. So that has been installed at Kingston. It'll be installed in the other locations as well. You can see we have speakers up here. For when we have, you know, assemblies or performances. And then you can also see here, this is from the stage, the interior of the stage. They have started to put the rigging up.
For curtains and lighting and things of that nature. And again, you can also see that the flooring is there. It's getting acclimated. We have a scoreboard in. We have our basketball backstops in. So that project is moving right along there. And by next September, we'll have them all in the same spot. So that'll be great. As far as Carusi is concerned, we really are phasing out of phase one, moving into phase two. Getting ready for that, building the summer schedule for that project, as you recall, it is a four-year project there.
Our construction management folks and our B&G folks met with teachers at Crew C today to talk about expectations, what it will look like. How much stuff you can take with you if you're moving into the TCUs, how much stuff you're going to have to leave behind. And had all those kinds of conversations today. I was told it went very well. So we're excited for that. Building to move into the next phase. And then if we move on to our preschool additions, we have one edition at Malburg and one at Kilmer. We are also putting in toilet rooms at Malburg.
Exciting pictures to see. I know that the fence doesn't help, but it's exciting to at least see that the concrete floor has been poured here. They were actually removing blankets that they had put on top of the concrete while we were there. Again, you can see because of the conditions around it, that's why the picture is being taken through the fence. But yeah, very exciting to see that that project is moving right along. And then if you look at Kilmer, you can actually kind of see here, you know, the hallway and the shape of the classrooms. We expect that concrete pending weather to be poured very shortly.
And once that happens, then the brick walls, the masonry block walls will start to go up. So that's very exciting to see that. Progressing. So in terms of projects that are upcoming, whereas a middle school. We have submitted our permits and we are working on the construction schedule for that. As you can see, our Lewis vestibule is completed. It looks fabulous. Carusi Middle School, we're starting the purchasing process. So we've issued the purchase order for the TCUs to come in.
We've also issued a purchase order for the installation. It's shocking, I think, how much work will go into getting those up and running. So we're starting that process now. In Design, we have Beck Middle School. That'll be the front entrance area. West Stadium will be lighting an ADA accessibility that project will start after July 7th. And then next on the list, we're looking at Cooper. We've already done the side parking lot at Cooper, so we will focus on the front parking lot and the playground.
At Beck, we've already done the front parking lot, so we will focus on the west side parking lot at Beck. And then as we move forward for 26 and 27 at the high schools, we're starting to put together the pieces for renovations at the auditorium at East and in 2027 renovations at F Wing and the auditorium at West. And then we also just started to have conversations about doing another round of critical HVAC projects. We did that last summer. We used a combination of ESSER funding, bond funding, capital projects funding, state funding to do that project.
And so moving forward with HVAC, We're starting to gather a list now of the most critical areas that need to be addressed. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Greenbaum. Thank you very much. And thank you for sharing that presentation. I always like to see the pictures and It's nice to see some updated pictures from when we met a week ago. So something else I wanted to talk about is when we have these monthly construction meetings, there are certain questions that I ask every month.
I always talk about budget and schedule status, what went right, what went wrong. What are we doing about it and what's the impact? Last meeting, I started asking a new question. I started asking about tariffs. We don't discuss politics here, but we still need to talk about the impact of policy changes. And there are potential impacts to some of these bond construction projects. When we're looking at tariffs for Canada and Mexico, that happens to be where a lot of our HVAC equipment comes from.
Tariffs on China, a lot of lighting equipment comes from there. So far, there's been no impact, but vendors are aware and they're already drafting new price lists that reflect these tariffs that are built into their pricing. And our architect and construction manager are staying abreast of any developments. Looking forward. The next thing that we've been hearing about are a 25% tariff on steel and aluminum.
Steel, 25% is imported in our country. Aluminum, 50% is imported. So, you know, we don't know of any impact yet, but we'll continue monitoring the impact of these and other actions and report out any significant impacts. Thank you. Do any board members have questions about the monthly bond construction update? Seems like you did a wonderful job because nobody has any questions.
This is Winters? I am always very excited to hear about playgrounds. Oh, I'm sorry, Dr. Dreisen. Thank you for chiming in. The second that I close my Zoom window to look at the agenda. Go ahead. I'm sorry. No problem. No, I just wanted to echo I love the pictures and just in particular, this is no surprise to the other board members, but I also just wanted to echo how great I think the the Lewis vestibule is. And I know it's all on track. But just really excited for the day when all of our buildings will have the vestibules. Thank you. Any other board member questions? Seeing none, thank you so much. We are going to move on to correspondence. We're going to do the lightning round version like we did last time.
Which is that board members, if you've attended an event with other members, just loop them right in when you're reporting. We're not repeating each other to try to make this process a little more streamlined. I'm actually going to start on the other side of the room this time. That's okay with Ms. Palmer. Thank you. So on January 23rd, I attended the most recent Fair Funding Committee meeting. There was a pretty robust conversation around some changes in the legislature. Especially as they relate to Cherry Hill with Assemblywoman Pam Lampett.
Retiring from the legislature after almost 20 years. She was the chair, longtime chair of the Assembly Education Committee And the new chair of that committee is from more of the Trenton area. So there was a lot of conversation around how that committee can engage some of the new New education committee members as well as our new committee woman or assemblywoman, I'm sorry, Melinda kane The next meeting of the Fair Funding Committee for anyone who is interested is at 7 p.m. On February 27th.
That will be on Zoom. Information will be posted on the Fair Funding Cherry Hill Facebook page. Or you can, and if I get this wrong, I apologize, you can email fairfundingchps at gmail.com. But the Fair Funding Cherry Hill Facebook page is pretty up to date. February 6th. I attended a screening of the short film The Inventor at Cherry Hill West. That was an event sponsored by CHEA. And I believe the filmmaker actually did some sessions with our West broadcast students earlier in the day. It was a fantastic short film with a wonderful Q&A led by Mr. Guy.
Ms. Abdul Rahman, if I'm leaving anybody out, I apologize, but I was really happy to represent the board at that event as well. Check it out. It's a 15 minute film about the inventor of the original inventor of the gas mask That is my lightning round contribution. If anyone has questions, I'm happy to answer them. Excellent. See no questions, Dr. Braddock. I have none to report, but I'll be happy to report that I've already signed up for Mary Poppins and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. So East and West, I'll see you pretty soon. I appreciate that.
Ms. Stern. I attended the Portrait of a Graduate meeting, strategic planning meeting that was held at High School East. Conducted by Mrs. Roskopf and Dr. Morton. Last, I believe it was thursday I'm going to say it was the fourth. Time flies. Definitely smaller attendance than I think some of the previous meetings, I think just due to the fact that they're towards the end.
And, you know, I think some interesting feedback and participation It was mostly really there as a listener. And I believe there's discussion that there may be future, a virtual one in the future for those who want to participate virtually. So I think that would be a great addition. And that's all I got. Excellent, Mr. Fain. So I, not on an official Board of Ed capacity, but I did, this is relevant to our updates and I figured I would put it out there. I did attend the PTA meeting at Kingston where the APR was a huge topic of discussion as the principal is very excited about the
The progress it was discussed in there about fifth graders potentially being able to use this as a move up ceremony. Thing and and with the understanding that our plan, excuse me, is to open them all in September, but I figured I'd put it out there. As something that was mentioned. I did as an official Board of Ed capacity, attend the Malberg Portrait of Graduate event last Thursday, the 6th. I also echo, unfortunately, not the biggest turnout, but interesting enough, I felt after attending the one at West and this one at preschool.
At the preschool level, I felt like the discussion was very similar Lots of commonalities between the two, even though they're very widely different in the demographics of people that were there to represent their family. Discussion about individuality of the students, including families, building resiliency in our students, all this kind of stuff. So really good discussion really good insight and thank you to those who did take the time to come out that night. And then lastly, on Wednesday the 5th, I attended the Camden County Educational Services Commission meeting.
This was the first meeting for the year. So it was a commission overview for the new members and for those in attendance Swearing in of new members and it was the budget meeting. So we voted on the budget for them. Other than that, there wasn't much more to update on but That's that. Thank you. Mr. Greenbaum. Thank you. So I attended a debrief on our visit to Bergen County Academies.
And I'll just share a summary of some of the ideas that were discussed. There's some discussion of expanding CTE pathways to cover more areas of interest, and this includes opportunities for more experiential learning and expanding opportunities for internships. There's some different proposed scheduling configurations that might provide more flexibility for students, accommodate these pathways and experiential learning opportunities. And there are some things that I really liked. Most significantly is providing new opportunities for all students at all levels not just our highest performers. And it looks like there's some potential for some great opportunities here.
So I'm looking forward to seeing more specific recommendations and discussing potential paths forward to expand these opportunities for students. Thank you. I attended the High School East Open House with Dr. Dreisen. Which was a lot of fun, especially after attending High School West. One thing I loved this year was the consistency that occurred between both high schools so that students could really directly compare the strengths of each high school and choose the high school that best suited them. So I thought that was a real strength this year. And it's always just fun to walk around and see the students showcase the many
Clubs, activities, sports, all the opportunities that they'll have in high school. It's always really cool to see the eighth graders and their families looking at the high schools with those fresh eyes and seeing what the opportunities are. So thank you to Mr. Finkel and High School East for having us there as part of that. I also attended the African American Read-in chain at Russell Knight Elementary School, which is one of my favorite things to do. I did it as a community member for years and years. I read the two second grade classes. And nothing makes you happier if you're having a mediocre day or midday than reading to second graders. They're fantastic.
So it was a great experience. And then this weekend, I represented the board at the Chinese Pool Spring Festival gala I gave just welcome and greeting from the board. They thanked us for their use of Cherry Hill Public Schools facilities for their school. And we talked about the importance of education and cultural diversity and community. In Cherry Hill. So it was a really positive experience. And that's it for me, Mr. Mayor. I will win the quickest report out for correspondence because I was unable to attend any events since our last meeting.
And I'm done. I don't know whether to applaud that or not. Ms. Gallagher. Yeah, so I Let me pull up my document. I forgot to mention this at the last meeting that on the 21st of January, I attended I think it was 21st, a sustainability committee meeting um My kids are being loud, sorry. We continue to work on the strategic plan that I believe will be presented to the board shortly. We have a meeting this coming Thursday where I think we will be completing that analysis.
And in preparation for presenting to the board. I also attended the Union County and Camden County NJSBA meetings. Union County discussed It was a discussion with a local BA at a district up there and how he prepares for a budget that's unknown. It was a really good discussion. And then Camden County was on the introduction of AI. And it's a really timely topic because I know that there's some work within our district working with students and administrators as to how to
Manage artificial intelligence and education and how to maybe not to how to teach students and teachers to like work with it rather than against it. So those were the three events I was able to attend. Thanks. Thank you, Dr. Dreisen. Thank you. No additional comments. I echo your comments on the eighth grade information night at East. I think Dr. Dreisen just won correspondence for this week. Thanks for playing.
Sorry, Joel. It's just inspiration. It's inspiration to try harder next time. Moving on. First public comment. There will be two opportunities for public comment this evening. This first public comment is for board action items only, which tonight is item 17 through 20. There will be another public comment section for any topic at the end of the meeting. If you are a student in the district, and I know I was informed several students wanted to comment tonight. So if you are a student You may comment on any agenda item during first public comment Please identify yourself as a student. That means if you're online, if you could put an S after your name so that I know that you're a student so I know to call on you first.
If you would like to speak now, please identify the agenda item and clearly state your name and municipality. We will alternate between speakers here in the room and those that are online. Each speaker will be given a maximum of three minutes to speak. The timer on the screen will indicate the amount of time you have remaining. Public comment is an opportunity for members of the community to comment on matters relevant to the operations of Cherry Hill Public School District or within the authority of the Cherry Hill Board of Education The board welcomes diverse opinions on relevant matters. Under established federal law governing reasonable restrictions on speech public forums.
Statements which demean individual community members or groups or which are irrelevant to the operations of the school district or repetitious will not be permitted. Community members who would like to present information not relevant to the school district are always welcome to communicate directly to the district superintendent. Board president and all board members via email or other alternative means. We're going to start in the room, as is our custom. Would anyone in the room like to comment on an action item tonight? Please state your name and municipality.
Item number 19. Rick Short, Cherry Hill. I guess this… This agenda item can go maybe two or three ways. I'm sorry, Mr. Short, which action item are you speaking on? It's the one with… the list of names for Rowan University. Is that the one? See the list there? It doesn't really have a number.
It's under 19 now. 19 points. 19 points 19.3. Thank you, Dr. Broaddock. Doesn't say that in the PDF though. Okay. So I guess there's two ways to go with this. I don't really understand what these Rowan University helpers are doing. I think they could either be doing musical help Which I would not. Say yes to or I would not endorse. But if they're doing something for educational, I would actually have to compliment the district.
So I guess that's my question. These… assistance, I guess, cooperating teacher school teacher That's what it says. I think these are students. Again, just to clarify, I don't know if these this is a musical issue, which I would vote Probably no for because Some of these schools are our lowest performing schools. But if it's for educational purpose, for better education, I would say yes. And I'd have to compliment you. And then finally, just as a walk away You find some serious… building issues.
With security. Mr. Short, we're on action items only. Thank you. Going online, there was a student who had a hand raised and I'm sorry I didn't see it. I apologize. I'm just still learning about this, but they're no longer have their hand up. So if that student would like to come back and raise their hand. Oh, there we are. I see Esha with an S after her name or his name. If it is your turn, if you could just state your name and municipality. Hi, my name's Isha. I'm a student. I just had a couple concerns. Today about the conversation that was being held about the protocol and the movement from east to west as a student myself. I know Erlyn already kind of discussed how confusing it was that none of us knew what was going on.
And I guess it was just really frustrating and stressful and it kind of just felt like us as students were being shoved around. And I do think that it would have gone a lot smoother if students and parents and teachers and everyone in the district, not just members from the school administration office knew the protocol I think we definitely could have avoided a lot of unnecessary confusion and stress. And it just seems that there's a lot of lack of information about such protocols during incidents like these.
And I think I can also speak for everyone when I say that it's very damaging to student and parent trust in the district. So I guess the overarching question I have is. Like how are students and parents supposed to feel safe and trust the process and trust the district when no one's really telling us about these? Policies and protocols beforehand And something that kind of like adds to worsen it is that no one really asks for our say or input in making them in the first place. So I think at the very least we should be informed and given details beforehand. And I noticed that when the BOE reps just raised their concerns about it, we were kind of just shut down. So I'm confused.
I guess why everyone seems to kind of be sidelining this issue when I think this is the time that we should be addressing it the lack of concern about really addressing students frustration and confusion about the incident that happened today is leaving us even more frustrated than before. Thank you, Asha. Alicia, sorry, I apologize. I see another student online, so I'm going to stick with students for now. I see Matt Berkry with an S after his name.
It's your turn. Hi, Matt Bercory from Cherry Hill East. Yeah, I just wanted to speak with regard to the same issue that Isha just touched upon. I think another thing that sort of comes as a result of the lack of communication that was expressed on behalf of faculty to students is a lot of confusion as to sort of the order of events that are being carried out. I know that Before we were eventually evacuated, as Isha mentioned. We actually had a shelter in place for an hour. So of course, like.
Typically, when we do have a shelter in place and even when we do have an evacuation, a lot of students will leave their belongings inside the east building and they're under sort of the pretense that we'll be able to come back and retrieve anything that we might have left. Of course, the consequence of this is now that we have to go back and retrieve all of our belongings if we haven't already today. And then also students are left wondering why they're being left in the building if there is such an imminent threat only to be later evacuated after the duration of an hour. So I think it was definitely a really sort of frustrating occurrence for students on that front. Of course, I will acknowledge that
The board, not the board but the board the Cherry Hill East faculty was under duress sort of in this situation and they didn't know how to respond and of course you can expect that everything's going to be carried out entirely smoothly. That being said, a big part of sort of expediting the process and making sure that everything Goes according to plan is according to plan proper communication between teachers, between parents, between students. And that kind of goes both ways. And when you have a situation where teachers are just as confused as students, we're all being corralled out of the building and
Nobody is really aware of what exactly is going on. I think it sort of just begets a lot more chaos than necessarily needs to ensue. And of course, a lot of students were really, really stressed out. I know even just Around me sort of standing there in the middle of where we were eventually evacuated. There were a bunch of students crying, people having anxiety attacks and I think seeing that scenario, you can sort of think about how all of that could have been averted or there could have been
Even just temporary sort of makeshift implements in place where those students who were extremely anxious would have reprieve and have a place where they could vent their frustrations perhaps to counselors. So I think in the future, of course, this is an unprecedented event. But if we could have more clear cut protocols and communication. That would definitely lead to a lot more constructive solutions when it comes to an incident like this. Thank you, Matt. Thank you for your comment. We appreciate it.
Going back to the room. Would anybody like to approach the podium? And Einhorn, Cherry Hill. 17.2, I noticed the grant. What confused me was the grant began April 1st, 24. Through June 30th, 25. I'd like to know how we're going to identify the disadvantaged students And have we done that already? What are we doing? Because if this grant ends in June.
You only have about four months to work with any of these children to help them. And I am a little confused because of the wordage in that grant. Do we still have IB courses at our high schools? Or is it only going to involve advanced placement courses as the grant also lists? I'd like clarification on that. Thank you. Thank you. Before we're going to move on, continue with public comment, I just wanted to let everybody in the room know, especially our students, that I'm hearing that the roads are getting quite dangerous out there. So while we do appreciate you attending the meeting.
And I am not throwing you out. I am just, Dr. Mahan says I should throw you out. But I did tell you before the meeting that my mom instinct kicks in and I'm having a feeling about this So while we appreciate your engagement and your attendance here, the roads are getting dangerous and I will not be offended if you leave. I will actually be relieved. And you're more than welcome to log in online and attend virtually. And if you go home, you can have snacks while you're listening to this too. Sorry for that interruption. I'm going to continue with public comment.
I don't see anybody else with an S online. If you're a student, please remember you should identify yourself with an S after your name. So I'm going to go with the first caller, which is the phone number ending in 788. Hi, my name is Jeff Potowitz. I live in Cherry Hill and it's 19.8. Other motions it was just added. It was an addendum. And it says resolve the Cherry Hill Board of Education there hereby ratifies and adopts the memorandum of agreement dated February 3rd, 2023.
Between the negotiating teams of the Board of Education and Cherry Hill Education Association directs that the terms of the memorandum be implemented and authorizes its president and secretary to execute a successor collective negotiations agreement incorporating the terms and conditions of the referendum. It's going to go from July 1st, 2025 to June 30th, 2029. Will you put the details up online of the contract? We can kind of know what's going on with it somewhere on the website that's easy access for citizens. And the question is, even for the first year, what is the estimated increase? What were the estimated cost
Of this B, is it significant or is it maybe $2 million or $3 million? Was it much? What exactly is the result of these increases, as you said, there's going to be A lot of raises going on and our taxes have been raised already. So what exactly is this going to be? Is it a 5% increase? Whatever, is it a 10% increase? I'm talking about per year. Can you give us an estimate? Tell us what's going on or at least give us an example and show us online. Thank you very much. That's it.
Thank you, Dr. Potowitz. Going back to the room, do we have any students who would like to comment? Jenna Taylor, Cherry Hill. I just want to make a public comment stepping outside of my Board of Ed role, but as a student at West. I was asked by my fellow students to make a plea. I think it's a stretch, but they asked me to. To have off on Friday so everybody could go to the Super Bowl parade. I already talked to a lot of my classmates and a lot of them said they aren't going to be there.
And last time that there was a Super Bowl parade, I heard that there was like 50% of the school didn't show up. So they asked that I, you know, come here and ask you guys. Now that we have a two hour delay, I think it's even more of a stretch. But, you know, I kind of want to be there too. I think Friday we should have off. But that's it. Have a nice night. Thanks, Jenna. Go Birds. You represent your constituents very, very well.
Going back to the line phone number ending in 891. You're muted. Can you please unmute? Phone number ending in 891. We still can't hear you. I am going to go back to the room. Is there anyone in the room who would like to make a comment on an action item?
Seeing none, I'm going to go back to the line. The next person online is Manar Hadi. It's your turn. Please unmute yourself. State your name and municipality. Hi, my name is Manar. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to change my display name, but I'm a student at Cherry Hill High School East. I am the school president and I'm coming here today to address the actions of today. I'm sure you've heard from other students concerns regarding it. I have to agree. After compiling student responses, faculty responses from today. I resonate with everything that was said so far.
Specifically, I believe there should be some central communication regarding events like these, when speaking to students or specifically teachers over what students should be doing next, where we should go. They often gave me the response of they weren't sure and we should Continue asking admin, specifically admin who are already ordering other orders, who are already busy. It was a bit disheartening to try and rely on our teachers, but receive no response in return. Additionally. I have to commend some of the… admin faculty at East for handling the situation as well as West.
But like I said, there has to be some central communication, whether it be the group chats through certain apps Because many small actions were made that could have been easily communicated across multiple platforms of teachers and multiple platforms I wouldn't be able to facilitate certain issues and mitigate certain things. Additionally. I believe that when it came to transportation, there was a big issue regarding that. Students are relocated on multiple instances. And many of those instances were unneeded.
So this also falls into the lines of communication and being able to Make sure everything is set in point. Now, I do understand that this is an event that's never really occurred before. If it has, it's been quite some time. And especially under new admin. However, when it comes to formulating new protocol. I believe students absolutely should have a voice in this and If anything, they should be a top priority concern since it does concern them. Thank you.
Thank you so much. Going back to the room. Do we see anybody? I do not see anybody at the microphone. So going back online to Barbara Armstrong, you're the next caller. Hi, I'm Barbara Armstrong, and I concur completely with what my peers Matt Berkery and Isha previously spoke on. I believe there was a lot of miscommunication between administrations to staff, and I just wanted to specifically touch on the dismissal from our location that we were moved to, as I feel there was definitely a very loose dismissal Which then led to a lot of panic on
Multiple student fronts. And I believe that faculty were left to assume responsibility of figuring out where to actually dismiss students to transportation and ultimately led to a lot of back and forth. I agree again with what my peers said previously that although this is an uncommon event, it does not mitigate the responsibility of administration to handle it properly. Thank you. Thank you. I don't see anyone else in the room who would like to comment and nobody else online. So I'd like to close first public comment.
But as I do, I just want to reassure the students again that this is a learning experience for us as well as for you. And I hope that I did not come off as dismissive earlier in the conversation. I'm really, if that is how it was received. I want to apologize for that because I want to assure you that board members are up here taking notes. We do not know what the student lens is unless you tell us. Even though some of us have high schoolers that are high schoolers at high schools east or west, we're still not living that lived experience that you had.
The only way that we can understand what happened from your perspective is when you share with us. So we're grateful that you are doing it. I am taking all of this seriously. I am seeing other board members do it too. And my hope is that if we ever have to activate something like this again to keep you safe. That we will do it with a lens towards greater communication and improvement. So that you all feel taken care of, not just physical safety, but your emotional safety as well. Because I can tell you that the conversation among board members today when people were calling and texting me.
Was one of concern for your well-being and not just your physical well-being, but I had board members say to me how worried they were for what you were feeling and experiencing. So that's a real thing and I'm grateful to all of you for bringing it forward. You're not falling on deaf ears. We will learn from this and we will continue to improve. So thank you. Moving on to our board work session. Board members with the weather outside, I'm going to ask that we summarize As briefly as we can. I know that's challenging when we have so many things to talk about.
But I am hoping to, as I open my document, model some good behavior up here since I'm going first. With the CNI report out. Give me one second to pull that up. I was unprepared. I'm getting the hang of doing both of these things at once. Bear with me. So the CNI committee met on February 4th at 6 p.m. We did some policy reviews that we received from P&L for our CNI lens to look through. We did a review of summer programs going forward. There were some CNI committee questions, especially with respect to SAC summer camp that were answered to the CNI committee today. Thank you to Ms. Staffin and the CNI team for getting back to us. I did want to highlight that apparently the age to work at SAC Summer Camp is 16.
So anybody who has high schoolers who you would like to encourage your high school students to get a summer job. I know that's a conversation in my house right now. I would encourage you to consider that. We talked about high impact tutoring. And what that looks like in the district. We're going to have Cherry Hill staff tutoring. We're also going to have virtual tutoring opportunities. Tutoring will happen both before school and after school. And virtually during the INE period. So we're looking forward to that. We got information on the filmmaker event that Ms Palmer attended. And finally, the bulk of the meeting was a presentation that was given to the board. It was actually a presentation that Dr. Mahan had given a few years ago on the work of the CNI office, what it does, curriculum development and instruction.
Because two of the three committee members are new and we had invited Ms. Palmer to join us as a new board member. To get a good look at the work of the CNI office going forward. And just to get some more background as we continue to learn and work together. How did I do CNI committee Any additional comments? I'm getting a thumbs up from Ms. Surefain. I'm going to check my other friends. Dr. Dreisen has a thought. Good thing I checked online. Look how good I'm getting at this. Go ahead, Dr. Dyson. Thank you, Ms. Winters. Just briefly for the board's sake. One of the items that C and I did the most recent meeting was a first policy review of 5701.
Academic integrity. So I did ask Mr. Mayor and the P&L committee Just for some further background on that as it relates to academic integrity. Specific to pupils and just you know in that context, again, of us as a board focusing on the what I'd be curious to learn more about what policies are in place right now related to academic integrity for the rest of the community, district staff and teachers. Thank you so much for that. So that is a good example of cross-committee communication that we are currently working on.
Seeing no other questions or comments, I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Green Dom for the BNF report out. Thank you. So this month in BNF, we reviewed proposed changes to food service policies that reflect changes to relevant legislation, including new terminology, expansion of income eligibility to qualify students for free meals. And some other minor changes, as well as incorporating And consolidating some other related policies into this one. This is policy 8500 for those interested.
This is something that will now go over to the P&L committee in March and is expected to be on the agenda once that has been finalized. We also… reviewed budget status with Mrs. Sugars, including some of our assumptions for state funding, considerations for tax levy and bank cap. Benefits, transportation, buildings and ground priorities and capital projects. The governor's budget address will be on February 25th, and state aid numbers are expected on February 27th.
So stay tuned for that. We're hoping for good news or at least okay news, but time will tell. And lastly, we talked about the addition of an extra full board meeting on March 18th at 6.30 p.m. To give additional time for the board to discuss and hopefully approve the initial submission budget. Any additional comments or questions from board members? Mr. Fame. And we kind of spoke about it earlier, and I know that it says here more information for the action meeting. But I'm curious if there is just any more information about what consultant
Services that we are providing for preschool. With the resolution we'll bid on or we'll vote on next meeting. Who should I direct this to? Because it still says more information coming. So this is a RFP that we had put out to provide BCB These, I always get this wrong, BCBA services for the preschool program. And when we do these request for proposals, we have to have an evaluation team.
One of our members on the evaluation team was delayed in her evaluation due to some personal issues so waiting for them to circle back, do their evaluation, and then we will put it on the next agenda. Thanks. Thank you. And as Mrs. Trafane said, this is not on the action agenda yet. And there is a note on the board work session agenda that additional information will be available before this is on our action agenda. Presumably at our next meeting. Any other questions, comments from board members? Seeing none, we'll move to the next to HR.
All right, there is no HR report out this month. I'm going to move it over to P&L for Mr. Mayor. Thank you. Again, just to keep this brief as possible, we spent most of our time, well, a lot of our time discussing the upcoming HIV presentation that Dr. Mahan And Ms. Carter gave us And we discussed those items that are listed as first reading items. None of those policies and potential revisions involve anything substantive. Of, and for any board member that has any questions about the revisions that have been suggested, most of which really are just to ensure consistency across other policies, consistency in language across
Public-facing communications that touch upon those policies such as website references So that when families look for information, they're seeing the same words, they're seeing the same language and they're not confused. Which often happens sometimes when policies end other public-facing communications don't speak the same language, even though they're accomplishing exactly the same thing. So it's really just working towards consistency across all those policies. All the policies, current versions. And revisions with red lines can and will be made available to all other.
Board members if you have any questions about those. So you can see them specifically before they come up for for second reading or further discussion. That is that there were some brief public comment as well Also, I'm thanking the committee for that work towards HIV improvement and communication as well. Any questions? And any other board members want to add anything, please do mrs sturdy. Just wanted to comment. We didn't spend a lot of time on it, but it was pretty notable to me that there is now a new policy that's been developed coming out of recommendations from NJSIAA to about spectator code of conduct.
For interscholastic events, which is going to strengthen our own internal procedures that we already have in place to ensure that spectators who are attending any of our events are respectful towards anybody else attending. In their behavior and that we also establishes our ability to If need be. Spectators who are not respectful in their language, in the way they treat others, in their demeanor towards students or towards staff, which includes coaches or other parents, et cetera, or other expectators.
That they're not permitted to be, that it's a privilege to be at our events essentially to some degree for the public to be there. We're happy for them to be there. But there is an expectation of their code of conduct, essentially. I think that's important that the community start to, once we once you know assume that this goes through your second reading that, you know, the community be aware of it. So more to come. Thank you for that information as well. Any questions for other board members? Seeing none, that's it for P&L, thanks. Wonderful. And now I am excited to turn it over to Ms. Gallagher for the very first report out from the governance committee. Take it away, Ms. Gallagher.
I'll make it brief. Even though I feel like It's going to be hard. We met last Thursday on the 6th. It was me, Dr. Dreisen, Ms. Stern, and Mrs. Winters. I think kind of how the other committees work will have some rotation in there to get some board members in who have interest in certain topics so that it's open to a lot of members and we get a lot of interesting and diverse feedback.
Two of the main, two of the only things we did was we reviewed or we discussed policies that we currently have that pertain to board officers or board members roles. And a lot of it was kind of listing out activities and As a group, we decided that Ms. Stern would take a look at a lot of the policies, especially the ones pertaining to board president and officer roles since she has been in that role for the last two years and has knowledge as to its accuracy and currentness. And then obviously those policies will also make their way through P&L.
And then the second thing we worked on was a discussion of committee chair role and response roles and responsibilities. And I last night, a very short email, so I apologize if I didn't really give much instructions. We as a group sat down and created a list of, I don't know, maybe like about 10 items that as a group we thought were as a group A good standard for chair a committee chairs. Roles and responsibilities as to like how to more a lot of it was very schedule based kind of like when certain aspects of that jobs should be done throughout the month and then reporting that information to your chair, how to receive information back, how to report, you know, kind of it's more
Kind of formalizing what many of what is already being done, but kind of putting more of a formality to it. So I sent that to our current list of committee chairs for review and any comments, questions. Edits are available. I didn't put a due date, but I can be in touch. And then obviously then after that, it'll be sent to everybody the rest of the board for your comments and questions.
So those were the two items that we discussed at our meeting last week. Any other governance committee members have comments? Yes, Ms. Winters, Mrs. Winters. Thank you, Ms. Gallagher. I just wanted to to say that I had a good conversation with Mr. Mayer, who is not at the governance meeting about the Don't look at me like that. It's a positive about the committee chair um
Right. The committee chair thing and the way that I sort of framed it out, and I don't know if you'd agree with this, is think about it if you were coming in as a brand new committee chair And what is the template for what we do? Because I think those of us who have been in the role for a while, we sort of have a framework or a routine or a rhythm that we've gotten into doing it. But we're not all going to be committee chairs forever. So the idea is to use our experience to create a template going forward so that when a new member steps up into the committee chair role, they can say, oh. Right. This is how you do it. And that way we're not constantly reinventing the wheel. So I just wanted to say that, you know, that those conversations are happening among the chairs Even though we don't really have a formal chairs group that's meeting anymore.
And I'm excited to move forward with it. And I'm also excited to grow more committee chairs on the board. I think there's really an opportunity for board members to move up into leadership. And to spread leadership around. And I think that as we work towards these tools and documents that can be used going forward. I think it's going to do a really, it's going to help to professionalize the board in a way where there are standardized routines and expectations that we all follow. That way there's more consistency along the board.
Yeah, I agree with that. I agree with that. Any other comments, questions? Thank you so much. All right. Well, thank you. Thank you so much. All right. We are going to move forward to the action part of the meeting. As Mr. Ovadia used to say, this is where the action is. It's the action agenda. I will go first. With CNI, superintendent recommends and I move the following 17.1, approval of attendance at conference and workshops for the 2025 school year.
17.2 resolution approving the acceptance of the Advanced Placement International Baccalaureate Course Expansion Grants. 17.3 resolution authorizing acceptance of the school climate change grant funds and 17.4 approval of ES5 summer programs 2025. Do I have a second? Mr. Fain, are there any questions? Seeing no questions, Dr. Morton. I don't know if Ms. Staffin… is online or Mr. Guy is here. Could you just clarify the um the AP expansion grant.
And that's already in process. Yeah, so AP Experiencing Grant has already been approved. Actually, both grants have already been approved by the district. Department of Education had just finalized the grant process. So it needs to appear on the agenda again for approval. And the way that they're listed is the way that the DOE has designated that they be listed. Thank you for that clarification. So we're already working on AP expansion. We do not any longer have IB in the district as we don't.
So the AP expansion grant, I know there's already been training for staff With respect to AP expansion, there were presentations given to CNI on that. In the past that are available. All right. Do any other board members have questions? Seeing none, Ms. Sugars, please open the vote for the CNI agenda. Board members, you may cast your votes. We have a unanimous yes vote.
Thank you. Moving on to the BNF agenda, Mr. Greenbaum. Thank you. The superintendent recommends, and I move the following 18.1 approval of bill lists. And that's it. Do I have a second? Ms. Palmer. Any questions? Seeing none, Mrs. Sugars, please open the voting. Board members, you may cast your votes. Ms. Winters, one point of clarification for me. I just have to abstain from the sixth bill list for conflict of interest.
Yes, go ahead. Thank you. Mrs. Sugars, I haven't identified exactly where the ESS submission is, but with regards to the invoice to ESS, I would have to recuse myself from that particular invoice. Otherwise, I'll be voting yes.
Ms. Winters, if I may, just in the spirit of transparency, I'm employed by Bayada Home Health Care. And so in general, I'm abstaining from any bill lists that include payment to the out of home health care. Thank you. Okay, other than uh mr Mr. Mayor's abstention on ESS and Dr. Drizzen's abstention on biota. We have a unanimous yes vote. Thank you. Moving on. Dreisen. I'll say it for him. I got you, Dean. I know Dean's going to chime in, but I got him.
Thank you so much. Moving on to the HR agenda, Mr. Fain will be moving the HR agenda from now on in our meetings. Take it away, Mr. Fain. Okay, the superintendent recommends and I move the following 19.1 termination of employment certificated 19.2, a termination of employment non-certificated 19.3 appointments certificated, 19.4 appointments, non-certificated, 19.5 assignment salary change. Non-certificated, 19.6 approval of sidebar agreements, which these agreements are between CHEA athletic trainers, nurses, and student advocates in the Cherry Hill Board of Education.
19.7 other compensation certificated And the big one, 19.8 other motions which is the ratification of the contract with CHEA. As of July 1st, 2025 through June 30th, 2029. Do I have a second? Ms. Winters, Mrs. Winters. Any board members have any comments or questions? I do have one. So I call him myself okay miss sure fiend um so um just a general statement about 19.8 other motions.
This vote for me personally is difficult in a sense that is maybe a little bit non-traditional. Second to the students, the teachers are the next most important people to me that were ensuring professional satisfaction and engagement in the district because without our teachers. We will not have successful students. That being said, I do just want to make a comment that it's giving me a little bit of heartburn with the anticipation of The additional money that this will add to our budget. And now that budget season is coming up and throughout the next couple of years.
Some of the uncertainties of our economy and things that we're discussing just weighs a little bit heavy on me. So I just want to make a comment about the fact that I think we're in a position, we have always been in a position, but now even more so that I really hope through BNF and the discussions with the budget that we're really trying very hard to make sure that we are sustaining And maybe even improving situations throughout the district so that we don't find ourselves in a position in the future where we cannot afford essential things that we need. So just the blanket statement on that.
Other than that, any other questions or comments? Yes, Mrs. Stern. I just want to also comment on 19.8, although I My only engagement with this process actually is simply voting tonight and the final product because otherwise I'm conflicted. So I've not been able to be involved in the process. I do want to say that I would echo what you said, Mrs. Trafane that is our teachers and our staff in general are truly absolutely critically important.
To ensuring the success of our students. And as such i think I believe that it's critically important always prioritize as much as possible. Their um you know their how we can retain and hire and retain excellent teachers and staff. And although there may be times where there are Other incidental ways. That we are looked to to create satisfaction. I want to emphasize that I don't think there's any greater way that we can so demonstrate our support for our staff and teachers as we are tonight by having this have come
Early to us, this satellite working on settling this contract prior to expiration. I think is our demonstration, our greatest demonstration, our commitment and support of our teachers. Any other comments? Yes, Mr. Mayor. Yeah, just briefly, thank you. On 19.8, just to Not to echo, but thank both of you for those comments. And I'll just simply say for me during the course of the several negotiation sessions that we had to eventually come up with where we are tonight.
Those concerns the importance of attracting and retaining the most qualified teaching staff we possibly can for our students in Cherry Hill. To ensure that the students have the best possible academic outcomes and opportunities post-graduation was absolutely at the forefront of my thinking throughout. Not just with regard to the numbers and salary guides. But also with regards to the remainder of those clauses which were adjusted revised as I felt and the rest of the negotiating team felt.
Necessary to achieve those goals. Any other board member questions or comments? Are there any online? Dr. Dreisen. Yes, thank you. Since this is the opportunity to discuss 19.8, I just wanted to echo the comments that have already been stated. I've said this before, I think the teachers are our greatest asset in the district. And I think we need to do anything As others have had said, to attract and retain the best.
Thank you. Any other board member? Comments. Miss Palmer, I promise I will be brief, but I want to take a minute just to thank, I know that there were a number of people involved in reaching this agreement in the negotiations, I'm sure that that was no easy feat as a newbie. I don't know the half of what goes into it, but I do appreciate the thought, the work the time that went into getting here today. I don't think you know, and I appreciate all of the other comments just about the nature of the budget year and priorities.
But we can't do anything we do without talented, qualified teachers and staff and we know what we need to do to be competitive with other districts. I think that is critically important, especially given shortages of teachers and things like that so You know, appreciate all that feedback and uh And appreciate all of the work that it took to get us here. Any other comments? Nope. Okay. Then the sugars, can you please open voting?
Members, you may cast your votes. I just accidentally got out of board docs. I vote yes. Sorry, this is Ms. Gallagher. And we have a unanimous yes vote. I just want to take an opportunity to say thank you to the board for your unanimous yes to our CHEA contract.
Settlement. Thank you to the negotiating team. I can tell you by all accounts, the water in the streets is that negotiations were extremely amicable. The relationship was outstanding. You maintained great communication. And conversation. And I know on the other side, our staff felt valued throughout that process. The contract that I think that you just settled and the numbers you just settled. Puts the district in a position where we absolutely become ultra competitive. It is our goal to be the best school district in the area. We want to be the best place to work for our staff.
Um you know it's one thing to say that and it's one thing to say we value staff It's another thing to actually show it through action. And this absolutely unequivocally shows it through action. The last two years, we've talked about LMC, we've heard that said repeatedly, this idea of collaboration and working together. But really, truly what this is about is about valuing our people. From the outset of the journey, we talked about morale and how when morale and working conditions are outstanding.
Classroom conditions can be outstanding as well. We are in a great place. I am super excited about this settlement. And again, I've been in the district long enough to have seen contracts expire and job actions happen and what results we're still digging our way out of what resulted a decade ago. So truly outstanding. I can't give enough praise to all involved. So thank you to our board.
Thank you, Dr. Morton. I would like to thank the entire Board of Education for its unanimous support of the contract that was negotiated and Mr. Green for all the work that he did. In the nitty gritty back and forth and for answering all of our 10 million questions. At all hours of the night, we appreciate it. When I was appointed to the negotiations team last year by Ms. Stern when she was president, I was intimidated and intimidated and felt a lot of pressure because it's the daughter of a teacher I know what it looks like when I know what it looks like There is no contract. And I recognize the importance of what this process is. And to be blunt, I felt a little bit unqualified to be jumping in there to represent the board because I knew that this was
An extremely important function of the board. And I wanted it to be done right and I wanted it to be done well. And at the end of the process now. Which started back in August. Now we're in February on a snowy night. I have to say that it really was a testament to the collaborative tone that has been built in this district between board administration and staff. That is not to say that we always agree on everything because we do not. That's not to say that we don't push back. That's not to say that we don't challenge each other or have different opinions. But that is to say that we come to the table with a spirit of working together for the best for the district, for the teachers, for the staff, for the students.
And that was why we were all in the room together. The other members of the negotiation team, which were Mr. Greenbaum and Mr. Mayer. Were outstanding. And between us, I think we put together a solution with full board support now. It's going to be great for our district moving forward. So just thank you very much to the board members for their thoughtful consideration of the contract that we put together. Thank you for the collaboration of CHEA and working with us in partnership. To get to this point. And I am thrilled to say that we have a contract for the next four years for our teachers.
Because that stability is going to be wonderful moving forward for everybody, for our students and the value we place on the instructional staff and the good work they do for all of our kids every single day. Mr. Mayor, P&L agenda. And back to the more boring work of the board. It's all right. I don't mind following that. And being relatively ignored. The superintendent recommends, and I move the following.
Item 20.1, approval of harassment, intimidation, bullying investigation decisions. Specifically those which were discussed on January 28th of this year. Item 20.2, approval of waiver of regulation 2340. Field trips. Do I have a second? Mrs. Surefain. Are there any questions? Are there any questions online? Seeing none, Mrs. Sugars, would you please open the voting?
Board members, you may cast your votes. Mr. Gertz, I have to steam from 20.1. I was not at that meeting. But yes to the other. Mrs. Sugars, I also have to abstain. I was not at that meeting. On, sorry, just on 20.1. Otherwise, I'm a yes.
This is Sugars. Thank you, Mr. Greenbaum, for validating my memory, which is that I was not an exec session. 20.1. So I'm going to have to abstain from 20.1. We have three abstentions on 20.1. Mrs. Schreffame Ms. Palmer and Ms. Stern. Other than that, we have unanimous yes vote. Thank you. We have no I don't know what just happened, but mine just popped up as yes so i am Yes to all on P&L.
We have nothing. To vote on for governance this evening as it is a brand new committee. Moving on to new business. Do board members have any new business? Is stern. Brief, brief new business in the snow. I just want to thank heavily all the students, all the staff, all the administrators and all the community members, parents, etc. Who cooperated today. For an unprecedented experience.
While definitely very challenging for a lot of folks involved, it was handled extremely overall safely. And that's because everybody cooperated and worked together. To ensure that. And I also want to particularly thank the swiftness Although some of the comments we heard from students, that wasn't their experience. There was swiftness at the administrative level. Specifically, Mrs. Sugars, Mrs. King um to to immediately activate having buses available to get that many buses for that many students is a feat unto itself during normal situations so Just want to thank you all very much for your hard work and
And notwithstanding, there are improvements to come, but there was a lot of good also that I just want to acknowledge. I don't think that has been acknowledged tonight. Thank you to any other board members have any business. Dr. Braddock. You know, I'm quick. I just want to recognize that today is International Day for Women and Girls in Science. So any students or any parents of students in the district of girls or women who are interested in science. We see you, we recognize you. Keep up the good work. Thank you. Any other board members with new business? Checking our board members online. I don't see anything. We're going to move to old business. Do any board members have old business this evening?
I see no old business. Mr. Fain is encouraging me to go faster. Seeing no old business, I'm going to move on to second public comment. This is the second public comment section during which you may comment on any topic. If you wish to speak now, please clearly state your name and municipality. We will alternate between speakers here in the room and those that are online. Each speaker will be given a maximum of three minutes to speak. The timer on the screen will indicate the amount of time you have remaining. Public comment as an opportunity for members of the community to comment on matters relevant to the operations of the Cherry Hill Public School District or within the authority of the Cherry Hill Board of Education.
The board welcomes diverse opinions on relevant matters. Under established federal law governing reasonable restrictions on speech and public forum statements, which demean individual community members or groups. Or which are relevant to the operations of the school district or repetitious will not be permitted. Community members who would like to present information not relevant to the school district are always welcome to communicate directly to the district superintendent or president. And all board members via email or other alternative means. I'm getting a thumbs up. As is our custom, we are going to start in the room. Is there anyone in the room who would like to make second public comment?
And Einhorn Cherry Hill. I just want a little more clarification on 17.2. At some point, it doesn't have to be this evening. But I would like someone to direct me to the board meeting that was this was discussed and voted on. Prior to apparently April 2024, I would appreciate that. On 12.3, is there a copy of the RFP for the preschool consultant services available? For public consumption that was submitted on January 17th, 2025. And do we have the same type of consultant services for grades K through 12.
Through IDEA funds. I would like to thank CHE Foundation For there absolutely marvelous donation of almost $27,000. 20,000. I can't talk. I'm so sorry. Let me try again. Still have two minutes. I would like to thank the CHEA Foundation. For the multiple musical instruments donation fund of $27,000.
To say that it's an unbelievable amount of money is saying it lightly. I am so grateful. I've known Eleanor Stoffman, who was one of the originators for over 30 years and that the work that's continued under the guidance of the leadership of John Cohen As a community member, I sincerely appreciate And even more so as the mother of a conductor. And I would also like to mention that I was at Kingston PTA's meeting because I'm a bona fide member.
I really got to thinking about that. And I understand that you want to celebrate all the APRs at one time. But I'm just going to tell you that 35 years ago, Kingston got a storage room out of a bond. And these kids, these fifth graders who are getting ready to graduate have watched this process for two whole years. And I think for them And the memories of sweating in a too crowded, too hot, all-purpose room for many years. That it would be an honor to let these children graduate.
And I don't really think it would offend the other kids in our district who are also getting APR room. So I really hope you will give them this opportunity. Because they've seen it through the whole process. Thank you. Thank you so much. Going on to the line, the first phone number is ending in 7, 8, 8. Please state your name and municipality.
You need to unmute. There you go. Thank you. Yes, I can. Sorry. My name is Jeff. I did. Okay, can you hear me? Okay, my name is Jeff Poto. You can hear me, right? My name is Jeff Potowitz and I live in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Our school district leaders invited Dr. Soyan Ann from Kansas State University and her colleagues into our school district with her Asian crit philosophy. It's a branch of critical race theory. Professor Ann wrote an article on how to teach fifth graders about the Korean War.
An excerpt from North Korean text are compared to excerpts from American and South Korean textbooks. That's North Korea. Leading questions were asked using the lens of critical race theory about the Korean War and World War II. She constantly undermines Our country, that's the U.S, and considers us imperialistic as Eurocentric and racist. Dr. Soyon.
Has labeled this as teaching difficult knowledge of the Korean War. Asian Crit, a branch of CRT, critical race theory, and argues argues with this small and agrees, I'm sorry, agrees with a small phrase in Cherry Hill policy 2100. 2100. To promote the success of, in parentheses, students with a racial identity other than white. School boards are supposed to promote the success of all students. However, that is our policy and our school district leaders refuse to change it.
Instead, they agree with academics like Dr. Ann and their philosophies who want to teach their philosophies to children as young as seven. I have asked our school district leaders to remove that small phrase from that policy since May of 2022. It is still there. To me, what is in parentheses as being justified since whites and Jews are viewed as oppressors. In fact, some see Judaism as a form of almost hyper whiteness
Please remove that because you're telling me you agree with that. Please remove that. Also, there's a bill, a Senate bill 3910, Sponsor Senator Ruiz. Please look at it. School funding Committee and vote no. Okay. They want to cut the preschool expansion aid after five years and make it SFR age. Thank you, Dr. Podowitz. Thanks for your comment. We appreciate it. Going back to the room. Please approach the microphone, state your name and municipality.
Rick Short, Cherry Hill. There is a… There is a saying, and I don't think you guys understand it. I don't think you understand that you're the most radical school board and the most radical school in the state of New Jersey. Today's events… Or just one example. Of how discipline restorative justice doesn't work. And people don't learn consequences.
Did you know that 20 of the most violent schools in New Jersey 18 of them use restorative justice. Can you find the top 20 schools of any of them that use restorative justice? You're wasting thousands and thousands of hours. I want to quote some of the things that Mr. Guy said recently, not recently, a while back. On ruckus. Up when he said that white Teachers need to understand The… Black students and their students oppression. So we're talking about Silly things.
We're micromanaging We are radicalizing every idea Recently, Dr. Braddock did the last school board meeting. Said that criminal restorative justice is working. Well, did you check Philadelphia's uh Stats with restorative justice? About deaths went down, but arrests went up. So every angle of restorative justice doesn't work. Now let's talk a little bit about radical ideologies.
You said before. Ms. Winters that there's Too many white kids in Russell Knight. And that's a problem. Will you renege that? That's the most racist statement I've ever heard. Dr. Morton, is there too many white kids? Mr. Short, you will address the chair, not Dr. Morton. Well… shouldn't he have to answer it too? He might answer in his comments. This is the chair's property. The board's public comment. You will address your comments through the chair. Oh, okay.
All right. So my other concerns of the radicalism that happens and perpetuates There's some recent comments uh by Ms. Roshkopf. On our Facebook page. One of her comments was. I'm not concerned about transitioning to women I'm concerned about Americans transitioning to nazis So, here's another comment. Just so everyone is clear, Los Angeles is on fire. Mexico sends out. Canada sends help.
South Africa sends help. Americans send help. And Trump sends insults MAGA. Conspiracies. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Going back to the line, the next commenter is Jack Brangan. You have three minutes. Yeah, can you hear me right? Okay. Yeah. We can. Thank you. I'm sure the board is aware of the executive orders that President Trump has issued several of them will impact Cherry Hill, as well as the entire state of New Jersey.
What I did is I read through a couple of them and then sort of matched them against the Atlas Rubicon to try to get a sense of the impact on the curriculum here. So one of the executive orders, I might probably run out of the time but ending radical indoctrination in K-12 schools In summary, it eliminates teaching gender identity, social transition. Requires parental consent in those matters. You cannot teach DEI.
You must change pronouns to the back to the normal programs. It calls out specific term phrases like white privilege, unconscious bias. No longer acceptable. This is all, of course, attached to the federal funding. No climate change can be taught. And you can't say that America is fundamentally racist. Or discriminating. America has to be described accurately, honestly, in a unified way, inspiring and ennobling.
Another one, defending women from gender ideology and extremism. And this one, you cannot teach gender identity. You must use proper pronouns and you must pronouns observe the reserve spaces for girls and women. Another one, keeping men out of women's sports is self-explanatory and then putting them America first and america first environmental agreements.
And all I did was I took some of the key phrases and ran them up against Atlas Rubicon to see how many hits I would get. And so I keyed in climate change. And going across all the courses, K to 12, there were 652 hits Starting in kindergarten. Going through first, second, and third grade This goes on page after page. One of the executive orders calls out white privilege In the African-American history class This came up, microaggressions All these things have to be taken out.
Systemic oppression has to be eliminated. Diversity and inclusion in kindergarten. Second grade, third grade, fourth grade. All these have to be taken out of the curriculum. Gender identity, kindergarten, first grade, second grade, third grade, fourth grade, on up. Thank you, Mr. Rangan. Your time has elapsed. Is there anyone in the room for second public comment? It will have to be taken out. Just wanted to give… Please state your name and municipality when you approach the microphone.
I feel like I should just wear a badge. Steve Redburn, CHEA president so I debated going on first public comment, but I didn't want to jinx anything. And then everybody stole my thunder before I could get up here so um Mr. Mayor, Ms. Winters, Mr. Greenbaum, thank you. As members of the negotiations team. Mr. Green. 3 a.m. Emails back and forth. Appreciate it. We got it done. The rest of the board, thank you. One of the things that I stressed with my CHA reps when we met to go through You know, on our end, our ratification that this board was sending a clear message.
And the clear message was that they valued their staff. I've been here since 2003, 2004. There were very tumultuous times with the board sitting at the negotiations table. Eye-rolling zero percent just nothing even remotely close to the way it is now. And I've stress that over and over with the membership. Okay. We don't always agree, but we're respectful. We have the conversation, we share each other's perspectives.
And we make decisions what's best for staff and students. And I appreciate that. I've made that message clear to my members. Going back to what Dr. Morton said. I think this is a byproduct of what you see over here. When we started the LMC work. Ms. Fleischer, Ms. Elmore Stratton. Mr. Mayor jumped in, Ms. Winters jumped in. When you have that foundation already built. And then you sit at the table for negotiations. It just carries over. So the conversations there. The mutual respects there. So this was like kind of like We joke about the tree all the time, but we planted the seeds And then we just kept moving and the tree grew and it grew right into the negotiations process.
Now, my last thing is… Mr. Mayor, no offense. I'm not an Eagles fan. But it's out there. So I'm going to take a different slant on the Friday and not having school There's a lot of stuff going around in the schools right now. Flu, sickness, et cetera. So one thing that I thought about, you know, when I heard the conversation happening is Friday closed, Monday closed. Is that like maybe a good thing on the health end? For the kids. I myself, everybody's had something in my house.
My wife, my kids, you know, at one point two weeks ago, my wife had like 10 kindergartners, seven were out one day, eight I've heard from other teachers so I'm going to take a different slant, not partying, not going to a parade but If you take just a secondary factor, maybe it's not a bad idea for four days. And again, I'm not an Eagles fan. Dr. Borners is too. Doesn't impact me. I'm not going to Paris. If it was the Phillies, then maybe I'd be up here saying something different. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Redburn.
Going back to the line, we have Candy Cummings. It's your turn. Good evening, Candy Cummings, Cherry Hill. Earlier today, I wrote an email to Dr. Morton and the Board of Education encouraging them to change this Friday to a day off for Cherry Hill Public Schools. As a parent in the district, I can remember back to what attendance was like in 2018. And sparse is one word that comes to mind. If history repeats itself, and it likely will, then attendance will again be at an all-time low as parents pull their children from school to attend the Eagles Super Bowl parade.
At a time when bringing people together around positive social activities is so important. I see absolutely no harm in offering a day off to let our families celebrate of victory that unifies our community. So I appreciate your consideration of this request. And of course, go Birds. Gobert? I see anyone else in the room. I don't see anyone else in the room for a public comment. I don't see anyone else online with their hand raised. I'm going to close second public comment and go to superintendent comments.
So I will be extremely brief. I just have a couple of items. So February is Black History Month. It's a time where we recognize We recognize and honor the achievements, resilience, and contributions of people the African-American community. And their contributions to history. I'd be remiss if I did not state that exactly. We had a mention of the virtual portrait of a graduate meeting. So we had intended to announce the date today, but we got a bit sidetracked in our communication but I'll be the first to announce February 24th at 7 p.m. We will hold that virtual session.
We'll be sending out information tomorrow in reference to that. If you have not heard already, tomorrow is a two-hour delay. We will monitor the weather. Throughout the course of this evening and into tomorrow as well. We believe that we'll be able to run on a two hour delay, but if the need for closure arises, we'll be sure to communicate that information first thing in the morning. With that said, I'll just say everyone travel safely back home. Great meeting, great evening.
Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Morton. I'd like to make a motion to adjourn the meeting. Do I have a second? Ms. Palmer, all board members in favor? Meetings adjourned. Drive safe.